


2.0

by phrenitis



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 18:24:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenitis/pseuds/phrenitis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He deeply loves this woman beyond reason, loves the way that she can still look at him like he's the complete measure of a man. It fills him with pride, with strength, and 5.8 million viewers is a non-existent number compared to the rush he feels</p>
            </blockquote>





	2.0

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Season Two, _Election Night, Part II_
> 
> Shout-out to the fabulous foursome that are the true brains of this operation. <3

**Lead-In** : It's been a long time.

He ends up holding her upright more than he spends time kissing her on the elevator ride to his loft, can feel the exhaustion in her limbs and the stubborn effort she puts forth to rally past it for him. She is resolute in her decision to make love to him despite the undeniable truth that time is moving continuously forward beyond her ability to stay conscious.

She says, "I'm going to make love to you, Billy" authoritatively, like it's validated fact and she's still over headset calling the show. It's followed by a fond, "kiss me again, you idiot" with her arms around his neck and hands in his hair. So he heeds her instruction, kisses her deeply and relishes the feel of her, soft lines that fit against him with aged familiarity. They fold together into a shape he knows intimately, well-worn creases guiding them.

He wants her out of her clothes and in his bed, wants her naked and spread beneath him arching at his touch as he brings sounds to her lips he's long had engraved into memory. But she's leaning heavily against him, her eyes closed from the weight of impending sleep, wearing a lazy smile on her face that turns downward after he stops kissing her.

"You're about to be ravished, you know. Well and thoroughly ravished," she shares as if he needs motivation to continue.

"Yeah, you mentioned that earlier."

" _I'm_ going to ravish you," she clarifies, and her eyes flutter open to check that he's understood the apparent complexity of her promise.

"I'm relieved."

"It's going to blow your mind."

"Hon, as much as that sounds like something I would very much enjoy," he says, honest and amused, "you haven't slept in three days. You're in no position to be ravishing."

She squints at him, tilts her head. "I see what you did there."

The elevator reaches his floor, but she continues to offer incitements as he leads her straight to the bedroom. Even half asleep she's creative, six years worth of imaginative sex described in ways that get him half hard just listening. And it's not simply the sex, although god knows he's going to keep her in his bed happy and satiated for the better part of their lives, it's her earnest appeal - her desire for _him_ and the life he's promised to make with her.

She leaves her skirt on the floor, kicks her heels into a corner, but protests his attempts to get her to lie down on the bed. She is adamant she is going to strip for him, and even with sleep muddying her efforts to take off her blouse, and sleepless hours hugging her frame, she is the sexiest woman he's ever seen.

The struggle of the blouse continues, and she frowns down at the buttons that defy her.

"Fuck it," she says, finally giving up. "Rip it off, Will."

He knows fatigue will win in the end, but god, there's no way he can ignore that command - not when he's tired and riding the high of being completely, madly in love with her.

It's only two steps to get her up against the wall, his good knee sliding between her thighs to keep her in place. She licks her lip with a small hum of approval and watches him intently as he turns his attention to her blouse. It willingly unbuttons for him, falling open with ease, and she shrugs out of it as his hands slide over her skin. 

Her body is a story his fingers still remember, words he's had memorized written across each curve and angle of her. And then he feels the thin line at her stomach. It's a smooth scar, only puckered at one end, but finding it momentarily steals his breath, a quick and forceful punch to the gut. The significance of it, the layers of why and how are tangled up in what they had and what they lost, and he thinks about the six-year journey of punishment they traveled.

"It's healed, Billy," she says softly, and he feels the sure touch of her hand on his.

He breathes again at her words, the meaning of them weighted in a way he knows she didn't intend. Her hand guides his gently and their fingers trace the scar - one more thing he knows about her, an addendum added to the archive he keeps. He deeply loves this woman beyond reason, loves the way that she can still look at him like he's the complete measure of a man. It fills him with pride, with strength, and 5.8 million viewers is a non-existent number compared to the rush he feels.

He gave MacKenzie his whole heart once, knew how surely he wanted to marry her after the first day they met. And it's a bleak reminder that the ground is still waiting below him, just as hard and unforgiving as it was the first time. He carries scars with him, too - jagged, invisible wounds he's sometimes surprised to find he survived.

Her expression is soft, her hand coming up to the side of his face to stroke his cheek. It's in understanding rather than apology, but she doesn't owe him more than that. He's already made her bleed a hundred times over to atone for her actions.

She pulls him into a kiss and he presses her into the wall, aligns their bodies so he's touching as much of her as possible. It's an irrational need to feel her against him, the length of her real and permanent and his again. He pushes his thigh further between her legs bringing her to her toes, and it eliminates the last of the space between them.

Her, "oh Christ, Will," comes on the end of an exhale, her lips not quite touching his as she instinctively rolls her hips forward for the angle and then grinds down on his leg. The look she gives him is wanting and greedy. It sends up a spark, a longing fueled by lust and love that he hasn't felt in years. His name is a shape on her mouth that isn't sweet and simple anymore; it's something rougher, layered, like it's a challenge. 

And he wants her to have this one - after all of the suffering, after Genoa and News Night 2.0, and the election and long endless days, he can admit she deserves a win. So he pins her wrists over her head, anchors her body with his, offers a "sweetheart, this one's yours", and is pleased when she needs little encouragement to take the reins from there.

Her mouth floats along his jaw as she rocks her hips against his thigh in a pattern he immediately remembers, and he tries not to lose himself in the friction. It's all heat and speed, close proximity and aching familiarity that heightens quickly. She doesn't struggle against his hold, and he doesn't deny her the release she needs. There's no question she's in control anyway, riding him and taking exactly what she wants. It's the MacKenzie he knows - that perfect point where the personal and professional blur, and he's happily hers for as long as she will have him.

Exhaustion finally claims the time game, and though he can tell she fights it, her body overrules and takes her over the edge. She doesn't cry out - and there will be plenty of time in the future to bring her to that, he'll make sure of it - but her breath catches on a flutter of sound as her legs briefly tighten around him and she surrenders to the waves that follow.

Her head drops to his shoulder, warm breath on his neck, and it takes him a moment of silently reciting the senate wins and what he can still remember of voter turnout by district across Ohio before he's able to swallow and find control again. He releases her arms, brings his hands down to cup her face and push back the strands of hair that cling to the sweat dotting her forehead.

"I had every intention of getting you straight to bed," he tells her as her breathing steadies.

"I know." Her smile is tired but content. "Though I'm hardly complaining."

"I promise, hon, I won't ever give you a reason to complain about _that_."

She gives a little laugh and brushes his lips with hers. "You sound quite sure of yourself, Billy."

"I'm trying very hard to be."

"Mmm," she agrees lazily, her hands under his shirt and trailing over his skin. "I do love that about you."

He steps back before her wandering hands make their way to his belt; she is incorrigible. "Then you'll listen- you won't object when I tell you that if you don't sleep, I'm not confident you'll survive to see any of what I have in store."

For one minute he thinks she's going to continue to argue and bring back talk of ravishing, but she finally acquiesces and lets him pull her to the bed. "Is it really that bad?"

"MacKenzie, I will never be anything but absolutely in love with you; but honey, it's like you're really trying to make that difficult for me."

She's already curled up on the bed so her swat at his arm goes awry. "You know, your compliments lately don't sound as pleasing as you might think."

"Yeah, I'm working on it."

He doesn't do more than leave his pants and dress shirt in a heap on the floor before crawling into bed beside her. She turns into him, tucks herself in his embrace, and everything is suddenly so _right_ there's a moment of utter disbelief that courses through him. She's in love with him, she's going to _marry_ him, and he is so fucking happy he already feels six years younger.

"Say something lovely, Will," she asks, voice soft and blurred with sleep.

He drops a kiss to the top of her head as he thinks. Their relationship is more than eight years long and barely three hours old, and she's as much a part of his past as she will be his future. He doesn't see a separation anymore, and he remembers how hard he had tried to make himself believe there was one. But since they met, there's not one minute he's spent with her that he's ever been able to forget.

"I missed you," he tells her, and knows it's enough when her fingers curl tightly into his shirt.

==

Morning is defined by hour blocks - 

**Block A** : MacKenzie in his bed.

Night fades from existence as morning brushes thick pastel stripes across the sky, and he wakes feeling lighter than he has in years. Beside him, and that thought is worth a second reflection - _beside him_ , MacKenzie is an unmoving shape only distinguishable by where she's twisted up in the sheet, but it's a familiar, comforting sight that's been stamped hundreds of times over into a permanent place in his memory. He's only ever seen her this dead asleep in his bed after the weekend he took her to Boston for the American Craft Beer Fest.

He manages to extricate himself from the bed carefully, though not exactly gracefully, but he only has age to thank for that. She responds faintly to the kiss he leaves on her brow - a soft smile fully free of worry.

-

 **Block B** : The alarming amount of news.

His impromptu engagement announcement, the election results, and Jerry Dantana's lawsuit provide AWN and the country with a thoroughly entertaining Wednesday morning. By the time he reviews the emails on his phone and scans three sections of the Times, it's less than an hour until the first rundown meeting, and he decides he's definitely not interested in reading through the lawsuit a second time.

It really doesn't come as a surprise to find that he chose a hell of a week to make his personal life interesting again.

-

 **Block C** : An engaging aftermath.

"I proposed yesterday," he reminds her, mostly in jest when MacKenzie sits up groggy and disoriented after she wakes. "You said yes, by the way."

She glances down at the ring on her finger. "I said yes."

"You did."

"Let me be very clear here," she says seriously, and the pause she takes sends his heart thundering. "I said yes _three times_ , Billy."

Her laugh when he pushes her back on the bed is filled with joy, and he kisses her lovingly, feels the sound of her laughter until he can taste it.

-

 **Block D** : Cont.: See above.

She keeps her promise.

Her long legs are around his waist, her heel sliding up the back of his thigh as her hips expertly encourage him on. Her skin is sinfully smooth beneath him, and in time, after they are both slick with sweat and he's traced tongue and lips along each memorable curve of her, he finds traction when she laces her hands through his.

She keeps him connected - her eyes open and gazing at him with an intensity that feels like a current arcing through his body. She seems as amazed as he is to have finally found herself where she'd been trying to return for so long. And he loves how it feels to be inside her again, the push and pull of their bodies synced to a rhythm that nearly composes itself.

He already spent time making her shout - brought out the vocal side of her that invoked god and cried out fuck because he put all his knowledge to use, showed her exactly how much he remembered. So he's pleased he can still draw sounds from her, his name like an affirmation as she comes around him in sweet, shuddering pulses.

He can't restrain himself after that. She looks at him with eyes half-lidded, dark hair damp and stuck to her neck and shoulders, and he comes because he has no other choice, everything stretched tight unraveling in a wild rush of white light and heat.

And she's there when blood returns to his brain and the world refocuses around him. She's still there beneath him, fingers running through his hair and a perfect smile on her lips.

-

 **Block E** : Mrs. McAvoy, he says.

Technically, she isn't his wife yet, but for once he isn't going to argue over semantics.

 

- _Fin_


End file.
